Thursday, March 7, 2013

Masterpiece Rumble and Ravage

Ah, TakaraTomy, how you conspire to take my money. I don't mind, of course. That's what disposable income is for, I suppose. Besides, when the figures are as beautiful as these, I'm more than willing to plunk down some cash.

For a few days after these were released, I waited for BigBadToyStore to email me that my Rumble and Ravage were on their way. After a few days of not getting an email, I decided to check my preorders. Whoops! I forgot to preorder these guys! So I ordered them last Thursday and they arrived today. That's pretty fast.

Rumble and Ravage were the first Transformers I had ever seen. When I was 7, my family made the trip from San Francisco, CA to San Diego, CA to visit some of my father's family. While we were there, we went to department store called Mervin's, which I'm not sure exists anymore, but they were like Sears or J.C. Penny. While we were walking to the register, I noticed a sidekick of toys and on that sidekick was the Rumble/Ravage two-pack. What drew me in was the artwork on the package - a robot fighting what I thought was a panther! I begged my mom for it to no avail. Dejected, I left the store without them. I got them a few months later during a trip to Hawaii, but then lost them later that year during the move to Long Beach, CA. I was a bit bummed by that until the Encore reissues put them back in my hands.

Now I get to experience that childhood glee all over with just a touch of adult sensibilities with MP-15. I won't lie, I've been checking the tracking on this thing until it arrived on my doorstep.

Here's the plastic tray insert. This is how they look once you open the box. Nice, huh? I love the translucent pink cassette cases. The cassette modes are nice.

Rumble's transformation from cassette to robot is very simple, yet ingenious. It's reminiscent of the G1 version, but with a few twists and turns. It's amazing how advances in engineering and toy design have allowed TakaraTomy to make the cassette mode the same size as the G1 version and yet add all of this articulation and make him bigger.

The guns are awesome. They peg into his back and he can hold them in his fists. Just perfect.

Rumble features great articulation. He can turn his head, look up, and his arms have a wide range of motion. Also, he can bend his knees and move his feet. He doesn't twist at the waist, but I'm not too concerned about that.

Here's MP-15 Rumble with the Encore G1 version. Just look at the difference!

Rumble comes with his pile drivers as accessories. They peg to his back when not in use and you can also store the machine guns in them. I only have pictures of them in use as pile drivers, however. They look great on him.

The pile drivers can also be attached to Rumble's boss, Soundwave.

Want Soundwave to connect to a terminal to download info from Teletran? No problem, as Rumble's pile drivers can attach to Soundwave's cassette deck mode.

When in cassette mode, Rumble's machine guns can store in Soundwave's back. I'm not too fond of this function as I had difficulty getting it back out.

Sorry, this is as close as I could get for a clear shot.

Ravage is just as awesome as Rumble. In jaguar mode, he's a little skinnier than I would have thought, but man does he have some great little features! Not only does Ravage feature neck articulation, but he also has articulation in his midsection!

Standing...

Crouching...

I love the fact that like Laserbeak, Ravage has his weapons built in. They're a little smaller than I imagined they would be, but that's keeping with the animated model.

He's smaller than the G1 version, but with the added articulation, I'm not really going to complain.

TakaraTomy did a bang up job with this release. They've taken what were once simplistic figures, kept the size ratio of the original alt-modes and added so much. The figures are bigger, wider, and have tons more articulation. If you've been on the fence about these guys, I highly suggest getting off that fence and ordering them now. You won't regret it. Now I'm just waiting for Frenzy and Buzzsaw. And hopefully a Slugfest and Overkill two-pack. And Ratbat. And Beastbox and Squawktalk.